Wednesday, 13 August 2014

The
TW:eed Project keeps on growing, with new volunteers, researchers and student
projects!

Becky Bennion is an undergraduate at The University of Cambridge. She
has recently started a summer placement at The University Museum of Comparative Zoology, Cambridge.
She is working on Early Carboniferous sharks, with a special focus on the
preparation of rock samples to reveal shark teeth and bones. Her work is helping
to reveal some really exciting new fossils! I recently caught up with her to
find out how she has been getting on and ask her some questions.

How did you become
interested in the project?

I’ve
been fascinated by fossils my entire life, and have spent a lot of my childhood
collecting specimens from the beaches near Whitby where I live. This love of
the natural world led me to Cambridge where I am currently an undergraduate
studying Natural Sciences.

I
really wanted to gain useful experience this summer with fossil preparation and
analysis, so I asked Jenny Clack during a practical class if she had anything
she could offer. To my surprise she said yes, and here I am!

What do you hope to
achieve in your work placement this summer?

I
hope to find some interesting specimens which will be of use to the project in
the long term!

It’s
incredibly exciting to be working with material which no one has looked at
before.

What has been your
most exciting discovery to date?

I
was lucky enough to accompany the team for a week’s fieldwork in the Scottish
borders at the end of June. Whilst there we visited a new locality and I
spotted some pieces of bone sticking out of part of the cliff, which was
incredibly exciting! Although there hasn't been time to analyse the specimen
yet, I'm hoping it will be significant to the project.

My
summer project itself consists of preparing rock samples with acid, then
analysing the chondrichthyan (shark) fossils which remain. So far we have found
hundreds of fragments of teeth and other bones, including a few unusual teeth
which we weren't expecting!